There are continuing efforts to develop new and improved load bearing surfaces. In the context of general load bearing surfaces, the primary objectives of these efforts are to obtain a durable and inexpensive load bearing surface. In the context of seating and other body-support applications, it is also important to address comfort issues. For example, with seating, it can be important to provide a surface that is comfortable and does not create body fatigue over periods of extended use. Given that the load characteristics (e.g. stiffness, resiliency, force/deflection profile) desired in a particular surface will vary from application to application, it is also desirable to have a load bearing surface that is easily tunable for different applications during design and manufacture.
It is known to provide molded load bearing surfaces for a wide variety of applications. For example, molded plastic chairs (e.g. lawn chairs) are available from a variety of well known suppliers. Although these molded chairs provide an inexpensive seating option, they do not provide the level of support and comfort available in more expensive load bearing surfaces, such as conventional cushion sets. Rather, they provide an essentially linear force/deflection profile, which gives the typical molded seating surfaces the feel of a drum or a trampoline. In seating and other body-support applications, this may result in an uncomfortable and sometimes ergonomically unacceptable load bearing surface. Further, the ability to tune the characteristics of a conventional molded seat is relatively limited. Different materials and different material thicknesses can be used to provide a limited degree of control over the characteristics of the seat, but this level of control is not sufficient in many applications.
To address the aforementioned limitations of molded loaded bearing surfaces, it is also known to provide molded load bearing surfaces that are oriented after molding to provide the desired load bearing surface characteristics. U.S. Ser. No. 11/423,540, which is entitled LOAD BEARING SURFACE, and was filed on Jun. 12, 2006 by Coffield et al, is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Oriented load bearing surfaces have proven to be a marked improvement over the prior art in many ways.